| Description |
The cultures of Central-Eastern Europe, living in the shadow of hegemonic powers, tend to conceptualize themselves as subaltern, underdeveloped, victimized, immature, minor, un-enlightened or even backward. Often, this self-understanding is expressed in art through the analogy of childhood or adolescence; the relation of a minor culture to a great culture is that of a child to a parental figure. We will closely examine Polish, Czech, Yugoslavian, Bosnian and Hungarian works of literature and cinema that explore how -- if at all -- the development of character is informed by unfavorable geopolitical and historical determinations. |